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From Farm Futures

"Study claims efficient fertilizer use could result in net savings worth more than $170 million.

A 20% improvement in fertilizer efficiency by 2020 would reduce nitrogen use by 20 million metric tons, according to a report commissioned by the United Nations Environmental Program.

The report was released at a forum held last week in Nairobi, Kenya, and was developed by nearly 50 experts from 14 countries.

The experts are calling the campaign to improve nitrogen efficiency "20:20 for 2020. Their analysis shows how this could provide a net savings worth more than $170 million by the end of 2020 through intergovernmental framework to address fertilizer use."

Read more here

From Courierpress:

"Controversy surrounding a proposed fertilizer production plant in Posey County raises serious questions about whether a Pakistani company is cooperating enough with U.S. efforts to reduce the illicit use of fertilizer in homemade explosives used against our troops in Afghanistan.

The issue reaches far from the port of Mount Vernon where Midwest Fertilizer Corp. proposes to build the plant with assistance from the Indiana Finance Authority. That state assistance is now on hold, and for good reason.

It’s complicated, but suffice it to say that the U.S. is investigating whether fertilizer from the Asian country is finding its way into deadly improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in neighboring Afghanistan, and whether enough is being done to stop it."

Read more here

Big data - the tech industry's latest darling is now being applied to agriculture as well.

From The Economist:

"The Climate Corporation, a start-up based in Silicon Valley, is collecting all kinds of information—including on weather patterns, climate trends and soil characteristics—and analyses the data down to an individual field. These insights are then used to offer farmers tailored insurance policies against the damage from extreme weather events.

Premiums for the company’s “Total Weather Insurance” (TWI) plans depend on crop and location. On average, they cost about $30 an acre annually, some 3% of the land’s revenue. In case of extreme weather at the wrong time of the season, The Climate Corporation pays out up to $300 per acre (the TWI is designed to complement federal crop insurance programmes in America, which provide only limited cover). In contrast to existing government schemes, farmers don’t have to prove actual losses. Payouts are triggered automatically without paperwork when the firm’s data show that writing a check is justified.

“We are not predicting the weather. We estimate the likelihood of unusual weather events and their potential impact on every single field in the US within the next two years”, explains David Friedberg, the firm’s founder and chief executive. To do this, it has to be good at both analysing huge amounts of data and calculating risk. To help with the number crunching, Mr Friedberg, an astrophysicist who once worked for Google, has hired a team of “quants”, or “quantitative analysts”, from university graduate programs in areas including statistics, applied mathematics and economics."

Read more here. 

From Crop Life:

"Recruited from across Canada, a distinguished independent body selects the Manning award winners as the best of Canadian innovators. Wolf Trax founders Kerry Greenand Geoff Gyles are recipients in this year's awarding held  last October 17 in Ottawa at the 31st Annual National Innovation Awards Gala. They will be the first honorees to receive an award for agricultural innovation since 1997, and their award marks the fifth one ever for the farming industry."

Read more here.

Kerry Green presented in last year's TFI-FIRT Fertilizer Outlook and Technology Conference. You  can view his presentation here.